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Every 10 years since 1952, British film magazine 'Sight and Sound' has published a list of the 'Ten Greatest Films of All Time.' Since 1962, 'Citizen Kane' has topped the list. Until this year... Find out who won the battle for film supremacy! In the insular world of cineastes there is no more momentous event than the list of the best films of all time, which is curated every 10 years by the redoubtable Sight & Sound magazine of the British Film Institute. This year's list, released in the August issue, represents a seismic shift. After occupying the No. 1 position since 1962, Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941) was demoted to second place by Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958). Enlarge Image Kim Novak in a scene from 'Vertigo.' It recently dethroned 'Citizen Kane' in a British ranking of the best movies ever. Paramount Pictures/Photofest For decades "Citizen Kane" seemed to reign by default. Then a challenger appeared on the horizon. "Vertigo" made the list for the first time in 1982 and kept climbing. Movie critics are constantly asked, "What's your favorite film?" I found it easy to reply "Citizen Kane," hoping that my questioner's eyes would glaze over and I could avoid a debate. Now I can say "Vertigo." When I am told, "I've never seen what's so great about it," I can reply: "That's fascinating from an autobiographical point of view." Actually, I'm not sure either one is my "favorite" film, but that's not what the poll asks for. I'm perfectly happy with "Citizen Kane," "Vertigo" or a number of other films topping the list. My personal "favorites" might also include "Singin' in the Rain," "The Third Man," "Casablanca," or Ozu's "Floating Weeds," which I love more than his "Tokyo Story," which is third on the Sight & Sound list. Citizen Kane (1941) Paramount Pictures/Photofest What is so great about "Vertigo" and "Citizen Kane?" To set aside matters of technique and artistry, which would keep us here all day, what fascinates me is that both films are intensely personal and autobiographical. Welles gives us a portrait of a gargantuan man of unlimited ambitions and appetites, whose excesses outran his resources. Hitchcock gives us a man obsessed with control, who had a fetish not simply for blondes in general but for the specific features of a specific blonde. Consider the fascination of Hitchcock's camera with the coil of hair at the back of Madeleine's head. Both plots are labyrinthine. Even if you've seen "Citizen Kane" 50 times, when you come across it while channel-surfing, you might be hard-pressed to name the scenes on either side of the one you've stumbled on. The plot of "Vertigo" makes perfect sense, but many viewers find themselves adrift. Scottie, the James Stewart character, is obsessed not with a person but by her image. When he meets the real person, he seeks to convert her into the one who never existed. The character Madeleine, played in the movie by Judy (and both played by Kim Novak), represents the emotional heart of the film. When "Madeleine" jumps into San Francisco Bay and Scottie pulls her out and brings her unconscious to his apartment, is she really unconscious, or is Judy just pretending to be? And when he warms her and puts her gently to bed, is that when she begins to pity him for the deception that she has committed? More from Review *How to Be a Better Procrastinator *In Praise of Copycats *The Saturday Essay: Can Syria's Christians Survive? Hitchcock invites us to follow Scottie's time line, but the film's emotional depths are hidden in Judy's version of events. Scottie is the butt of the joke. Judy is the victim. In "Citizen Kane," we see a similar psychological dynamic in how Charles Foster Kane grows consumed with his idea of Susan Alexander. Not the real Susan, a sweet, ordinary young woman, but his reinvention of Susan as an opera diva who would reflect greatness on him. Kane as a character turned out to be uncannily prophetic of Welles's own life. Scottie as a character reflected not only Hitchcock's fetishes but his fears. The films originated in the self-knowledge of their makers (and in Welles's case, perhaps, the even greater knowledge about him of Herman Mankiewicz, the writer). After I am cornered and asked to supply my "favorite film," I am sometimes quizzed about the "auteur theory" by people who "loved," let's say, Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies. A whiz-bang director like Mr. Bay invites us to gaze in awe at his frantic cutting, bright lights and loud noises. An auteur director like Welles or Hitchcock guides our eyes: "Look here…now there…focus on this…now that…make this connection…feel this absence. That is the best I can say about what it is like to be me."